


Soft kitty, Warm Kitty

by Wintermoth



Series: The Adventures of Adrienbug and Chat Mari [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, IN WHICH MARINETTE STRUGGLES, Powerswap AU, The Adventures of Adrienbug and Chat Mari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 23:09:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6028867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wintermoth/pseuds/Wintermoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Plagg told Marinette he chose people who had cats in their souls, she hadn't realized he meant it <i>literally</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soft kitty, Warm Kitty

When Plagg told Marinette he chose people who had cats in their souls, she hadn't realized he meant it _literally_. She also hadn't realized that bonding with him would awaken that cat. A little warning would have been nice or at least a bit of remorse from her kwami after the fact. She got neither.

After becoming Chat Noire, Marinette immediately noticed the changes in her behavior. Certain…urges that hadn’t been there before. They were stronger when she was transformed but always lurking…waiting…. She quickly devoted energy into controlling these pesky new urges so as not to blow her cover (or make anyone think she was a freak). She wanted to smack things hanging from the walls and found rapidly moving objects utterly fascinating. Curling up in a ball was suddenly a comfortable way to sleep, which was odd because she’d always been one to sleep sprawled out. In fact, she found she enjoyed tight spaces quiet a lot. Probably more than she should, if she was being honest.

And then, of course, there was the…pigeon incident. Fortunately for her, the urge to hunt things hadn't cropped back up since then. At least birds. She rued the day she came face to face with a mouse.

She’d taken to moving her chaise into the sun streaming through her windows and laying there while working on things or reading. Sometimes she forwent the chaise altogether and just laid out on the floor, rolling and scooching to keep in the sun as it moved. Plagg would usually join her whilst snacking on some cheese.

And that was another thing. While she was quite sure her appetite for cheese hadn’t changed, her appetite for milk _had_. Her mother had no objections at all, she actually encouraged her to drink as much milk as she wanted and dismissed her apologies for going through so much of it in such a short period of time. Little did she know that some of it had gone to Plagg, as well. She also noticed her mouth watering when presented with meat. Fortunately, she was able to contain herself.

Her senses had taken a nice jump. In the suit, she would say they were comparable to a cat's, and while they were nowhere near the same level out of it, there was a marked improvement from what they had been all of her life. Details were sharper and her needlework had never been better. Smells were more potent, which was both good and bad, though she couldn't easily separate them like she could as Chat, which made tracking difficult, but not impossible. Sounds were clearer, for better or worse. Most annoying of all: she felt uncomfortable wearing more than about two layers of clothing. Fortunately, given that it was the middle of summer, she hadn't had to wear too many layers. Winter would be a challenge.

She'd always been graceful and a gymnastics background certainly helped that along. She almost wished she could sign back up, just to test out her newfound reflexes in a controlled environment. With her luck, however, she'd likely manage to impress someone enough that they'd never let her leave and next thing you know, Chat Noire's alter ego is in the Olympics. (Maybe a bit far-fetched but she wasn't risking it.)

Marinette thanked her lucky stars every time she took a shower that the feline dislike of water hadn’t manifested within her. However, on a chilly, rainy day at the end of July, Marinette discovered that she did not enjoy being soaked to the bone while clothed. Not one. Little. Bit. When she was younger she used to play in the rain. She’d go up on her balcony and splash and dance until her mother demanded she go back inside and dry off. It seemed those days were over.

Marinette stalked into the apartment, dripping wet and grumpy, with an equally wet and angry kwami peeking out of her pocket. It wasn't storming out but the sheer amount of water falling from the sky made up for the lack of thunder and of course she, the Black Cat of Bad Luck, had been caught out in it. Plagg had yowled in protest for about half of her run home until he'd simply given up in favor of suffering in silence. Both of her parents were down in the bakery, thank goodness, although from the smell of things, her mother wouldn't be for long.

Her nose wasn't good enough to determine exactly what was being cooked but she knew meat when she smelled it. Curious, Marinette trudged over to the oven to have a look, and was immediately struck by the warmth she could feel radiating off of it even several feet away.

From the time Marinette was old enough to wander into the walk, she knew to tread carefully around the oven and when it came to the ovens down the bakery, she was never touch the doors without oven mitts. She’d always obeyed, even before she understood what a burn felt like, or that the oven would do much worse if she wasn’t careful. She’d always enjoyed the heat that would radiate off of them, especially in the winter when it was freezing outside and the warmth of the bakery called to her.

She had always enjoyed warmth but suddenly the urge to press herself against the source of it was overwhelming. Had anyone witnessed the change come over her, they would have seen Marinette's pupils dilate and her body sag as if under some great weight. Her knees went first, followed by the rest of her. She scooted the last few feet on her knees and pressed herself right up against the warm oven doors.

"What in the world are you doi—oh." Plagg, who had emerged from his pocket to see why his charge was not heading for her room and a set of nice _dry_ clothes, immediately fell silent upon realizing what she was doing. "Oh, yes. Good," he told her as he crawled to her other side and snuggled his tiny body against the metal doors as well. "Aaaaah, that's more like it."

Marinette was strongly inclined to agree. The warmth seeped through her skin and down to her very bones, warming her. The scent of whatever was cooking inside permeated the space around her, filling her nose with its savory scent, and made her mouth water. It was _heaven_.

And it was on that same rainy day in July that Marinette discovered perhaps the single most important thing that Plagg had completely failed to mention about being Chat Noire.

She _purred_.

It started softly at first and she felt it rather than heard it, deep in her chest. Then, slowly, it grew louder until a fur blown purr rumbled in her throat. Plagg echoed it with a purr of his own. Marinette was fully aware of what she was doing, just as she was aware on some level that she should probably be at least freaking out over this development, but she was _warm_ and there was _meat_ and she didn't care. It was strangely soothing by itself but combined with the sound of Plagg’s, it made her feel safe. Even when the door began to get uncomfortably hot against her skin, the purr didn’t die in her chest. She simply plucked Plagg from her lap and shifted around so her other side could press against the doors, before returning him to her lap. It was bliss.

At least until the door opened and her mother walked in. Marinette's purr died in her throat before her mother could hear it and Plagg was able to burrow into jacket in time, but she there wasn’t time to get away from the oven, which was how Sabine came to find her daughter cozied up against the oven. Then she had to endure a bout of parental ire and concern before being shooed to her room to dry off, for goodness sakes.

“Sooo,” Marinette drawled once they were alone in her room and Plagg had floated out into the open. “Care to explain?”

The tiny kwami flicked his tail. “Explain what?”

“What was _that_?”

“You tell me, she’s your mother.”

“No! Not her. The…y’know…” she trailed off uncomfortably. Plagg gave her a flat look and flicked his tail again. Evidently he wasn’t going to help her out. Marinette sighed and muttered, “The purring.”

“Ah,” he replied as if he didn’t already know. “Purring is a perfectly natural function for cats. It’s both a display of happiness and comfort as well as a method of calming oneself.”

“But I’m not a cat!” she protested.

“Maybe not physically,” he agreed. “But you’re not a normal human anymore, either. You may as well get used to it. Now please find me a towel. I can’t stand having wet fur.”

**Author's Note:**

> Should I do a companion piece for Ladybug? XD


End file.
